As an Anglican pastor, I bear scars from the war with "universalism" inside the Episcopal Church. I also have endured the battering of Bishop John Spong and his effort to "rescue the gospel from fundamentalists." And when I saw Rob Bell's new book Love Wins, I found myself quoting former Yankee great Yogi Berra: "It's like déjà vu all over again."



I'm the kind of person who detests jumping through hoops, playing mental gymnastics and arguing about what the definition of "is" is. That's why I'm not going to challenge the book point by point as wonderful scholars like Dr. Al Mohler have done. Instead, I'll deal with the big picture in the larger, even global, context of this "new suit" placed on an old heresy.

A number of years ago, when some young people representing the sad and lost segment of the church told me how wonderful Rob Bell's videos were, I became curious. Even back then, I felt nauseous when I watched some of these videos. I saw just how troubled this young man Rob Bell is and how he, in his effort to create a name for himself, began to trouble weak believers -- causing so much harm to his soul and theirs.

Asking questions for the sake of asking questions, not in a desire to find true answers, is indeed troubling. Even then, I felt that Bell's questions were quite similar to those of the serpent in the Garden of Eden: "Did God really say that?" He was more anxious to share his own doubts than to arrive at the truth. I felt that Mr. Bell and his equally confusing mentor, Brian McLaren, are deeply entrenched in the school of Bishop Spong from the Episcopal Church -- but with one major exception: they call themselves evangelicals...

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Jeremy Hulsey